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CiviCRM Tips and Tricks

One registration. One payment. Multiple events!

What would you say if we told you that CiviCRM can be configured to manage multi-day or multi-event registrations and payments for a single contact? It's true! Here's how we configured CiviCRM to manage an organization annual fundraiser by creating a way for their members to register for multiple events during a single-day event. But you might be thinking that, as far as you know, CiviCRM only allows participants to register and pay for one event at a time. So how did they do it?

Your CiviCRM database is the central hub of your nonprofit's fundraising efforts, membership and contact management, event organization and other important ongoing initiatives. Because of its integral role in your organization, your database requires ongoing maintenance to ensure optimum performance. With nonprofit constituent mobility and employee turnover at an all-time high, data can quickly become messy and stale when data entry procedures for the organization are not properly regulated.

To ensure consistent data entry by all users, every organization (even those run by a single person) should have a DES (Data Entry Standards) document that clearly outlines what information the organization aims to maintain and how it is entered in the database. Not only will the DES document act as a solid resource for data entry procedures, (especially for organizations with multiple CiviCRM users), it also serves as a tool to retain organizational knowledge. The preservation of organizational knowledge is vital to all organizations, but especially so for smaller organizations with only one or two CiviCRM users and organizations with high employee turnover rates.

Use “Campaigns” to manage trade missions

Most people use CiviCampaign as a tool to manage fundraising or advocacy campaigns because CiviCampaign is one of the transversal components of CiviCRM that allows you to link together events, activities, mailings and contributions under one umbrella in order to track progress toward a goal. So if you think outside the box, there are other uses for CiviCampaign and some are more business oriented. This post describes how an international trade association uses CiviCampaign to manage trade missions.

Let's say you have a registration profile you are using for an event in which you are collecting both the home and work addresses for an individual. As you can see in the screenshot below, without headers, it is hard to see where the fields related to the personal information end and where the fields related to the professional information begin.

The segmentation of your database is key for better communication with your constituents. A common segmentation process is to organize your contacts by gender (Female/Male). Let's say you are hosting a Women in Business luncheon where only women can attend the event. In this case, you want to make sure you send the invitation for this event only to the female contacts of your database. But what a hassle to manually update the Gender field for all your contacts! There is a solution.

Ever find yourself days or even weeks away from the next available training session, when what you need is immediate instruction on how to complete a certain task in your CiviCRM? Don't worry! Helpful resources are just a click away - below is a list of the best resources and tips on searching to help you find what you need fast!

Use "Activities" to manage your workflows

You may have heard of CiviCase which allows you to handle complex workflows in CiviCRM. This is a powerful tool but can be difficult to configure properly.What if you have a simple workflow involving only a few interactions with your contacts? You can manage this workflow with the use of "Activities!"

Use Schedule Reminders to send Welcome Messages to Members

If you manage memberships or events in CiviCRM, you may already be familiar with the Scheduled Reminders. This function of CiviCRM allows you to automatically send an email to your contacts when a system event is reached. For example, you can inform constituents that their membership is about to expire and that it is time to renew it (check our article about checksum tokens to direct your contact to a prefilled membership renewal form), or remind them that they are registered for an upcoming fundraiser happening soon.

CiviCRM online forms aren't just for your target audience. They can also be used by your staff to streamline data entry and ensure data integrity when recording donations, membership signups/renewals and event registrations.

Use the Membership module to manage Sponsor/Student Relationships

This is an example of how you can use the membership module of CiviCRM called "CiviMember," for managing sponsorships for students seeking continuing education rather than the traditional use for managing memberships!
The organization main need is to track the relationship and the financial support between the individual sponsor and the sponsored student.